Twitter's new owner Elon Musk has embarked on a mission to make sweeping changes to the microblogging site. After reports of increasing tweet word limit gained rounds, now Musk is believed to have hinted at introducing a paid verification feature to Twitter accounts.
Musk has reportedly asked his employees to either meet his deadline on introducing paid verification or leave the organisation, The Verge reported.
Twitter Blue is the social media platform's optional $4.99 a month subscription which unlocks additional features. The move is aimed at making it a more expensive subscription which will also verify users. According to report, Twitter plans to charge $19.99 for its Twitter Blue subscriptions. As per the current plan, the verified users have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue checkmark.
The Twitter employees working on this project have been told to meet a deadline of November 7 to launch the new feature or be ready to be fired.
The world's richest man, has already made its clear that he wanted to revamp how Twitter verifies the accounts and handles bots. It's been less than a week since Musk completed a $44 billion buyout of the social media giant. He has wasted no time in making changes to Twitter, which includes a new homepage for logged out users. He is also mulling mass layoffs aimed at middle managers and engineers.
The Twitter Blue subscription was launched almost a year ago to view ad-free articles from some publishers and make other tweaks to the app which include a different colour home screen icon. Musk is keen on increasing subscriptions to become half of the company's overall revenue.
A phone screen displays a photo of Elon Musk with the Twitter logo. (AFP)
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